It has become possible to conduct computer-assisted searches of large image collections to find a set of images that matches some query image. However, conventional image matching techniques have various shortcomings. For example, some conventional image matching techniques find matches between images that appear incongruous to human eyes. One type of incongruous match occurs when images in a matching set are selected from incongruous categories. For example, a matching set with respect to an image of women's shoes may incorrectly include images of men's shoes, or a matching set with respect to an image of a tennis shoe might include an image of a soccer shoe. Some conventional image matching techniques provide for search restriction by pre-defined category, or with respect to a set of keywords, without reliably, efficiently and/or effectively reducing the occurrence of such incongruous matches.
Same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and figures to reference like components and features, but such repetition of number is for purposes of simplicity of explanation and understanding, and should not be viewed as a limitation on the various embodiments.